PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Though bills of exchange existed since the late Middle Ages, the endorsement and subsequently the joint liability rule, which were slowly accepted in central Europe during the seventeenth century, made them much more suitable for long-distance trade and the provision of credit across political and thus legal boundaries. Jewish merchants across western and central Europe were equally involved in the trade with bills of exchange. Ashkenazi merchants constituted an important link to merchants in eastern Europe, primarily the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The article demonstrates how closely Jewish merchants were integrated into general mercantile networks and how Jewish communities sought to regulate commercial practices. This was particularly the case with the so-called membrana in Polish and mamran in Yiddish, a specific form of debt obligation used in Poland and other parts of east central Europe throughout the early modern period. Special attention is paid to the usage of multiple languages while looking at two levels of interaction, between Jewish and Christian merchants on the one hand, and among Jewish merchants from east and west on the other hand.